Making a decent film (or transparent, or what's it called in english) has always been the greatest problem in making my own PCB's - I actually liked the rest of the process with the light and the chemicals.

For films I used to go to a printer having a technical camera (not a print shop, but a real offset printer), for just a bit of money I got perfect films from laserjet printed paper output.

But the product you mention seems to be a real timesaver - makes me curious as well as to how good it is !

I use PnP on mostly all my stompboxes. It works very well.
www.tonepad.com has a great photo essay on both using the PnP
to make a borad and then etching the board via ferric chloride. I
here a lot of people using the same method with glossy photo paper.

I highly recommend the PnP you can get it by the sheet at
small bear electronics

I've used this with mixed success..but I was using "older" sheets that had sat on a shelf (after ironing, I had to double over some areas with a black marker, then after etching had to re-inforce some areas with solder/jumper wires...but it wasn't painful at all). Note: You probably don't want to use this method for a double sided board that has more than a handful of vias/thru-holes.

If you have access to a laser printer, I've heard of a different trick. Just use "Glossy Photo Paper", intended for use in bubble jets. You still use a laser jet printer though. The whole idea is that the p'n'p paper doesn't allow the laser jet ink to bind to the paper, so when you re-heat it (iron on) to a copper board, it binds then. The glossy photo-paper has a wax coating, just like the "real" p'n'p paper, that prevents the ink from binding to the paper.

In my house, at least, this glossy photo paper is more readily available than P'n'P, so the next board I do I'll try this method and report in.

Whatever you do, please post your experience here or in the "DIY" section of the forum!!

the product you mention seems to be a real timesaver - makes me curious as well as to how good it is !

Jan.

Jan,

I've just bought a pack- I'll post the results when I'm done (oh I wish I had a laser jet printer!). In the meantime I'll contact the makers (who don't seem to have a web address- which is a bit strange in this day and age), and find out if I can get a supplier in the netherlands for you.

PS you still have to etch the board- so there are still chemicals and watching your photo develop!

If you have access to a laser printer, I've heard of a different trick. Just use "Glossy Photo Paper", intended for use in bubble jets. You still use a laser jet printer though. The whole idea is that the p'n'p paper doesn't allow the laser jet ink to bind to the paper, so when you re-heat it (iron on) to a copper board, it binds then. The glossy photo-paper has a wax coating, just like the "real" p'n'p paper, that prevents the ink from binding to the paper.

Has anyone tried this yet? I suppose >I< really should- now I've wasted so much money on this p'n'p stuff.

Got the p'n'p stuff back from the printers yesterday- the amount of bloody money I've just spent, I could have bought my own cheap laser printer

So what mistakes have I learn't from p'n'p? Well we'll find out tonight after I've etched a board, but for some wierd reason the gif's I got from mfos are full of tiny holes which is not very good. Perhaps it's because they are 72dpi from the web?

With all those holes to be drilled afterwards, I'm beginning to wish that I had just spent the money buying some boards from Ray in the first place (and waiting 6 weeks for them to arrive!)

As you can see from the first, the transfer is pretty crap. This image you see here is infact two layers one on top of the other because the first layer was so terrible. It's improved but not much.

The second is a close up

The third is a photo through the film. I don't think it should look like this. This was the gif taken directly from mfos which was uploaded to quarkxpress and printed off. It's at 72dpi (I seem to remember seeing something about this on Ray's site- I might ask him for a 300dpi copy).

It looks like you've removed both images Jan. But you're right- the transfer is utter shite.

I'm very sorry about that Tom, it didn't look that way at first, I don't get it. It looked Ok at first, but not anymore. This user interface is not the most intuitive one 've seen around.

What I remember from the website (the one I didn't bookmark) the transfer part was rather tricky, with first absolutely getting rid of all dirt and fatty stuff, but also pre-heating the PCB and what not.

BTW you can always go in and edit your 'old' message including any attachments.

In principle by keeping clicking on "Add an attachment", I think I always use the topmost "add an attachment", ignoring all feedback and having faith, maybe keep your eyes closed. Oh and the attachments show up in inverse attach order ... so start with the last one.

Quote:

Must post in plain text. Really must! I dislike these html emoticons- or whatever they are called- I find them really cheesie (the even look like baby-bel's!!)

Glad you don't like 'm. You can disable Smilies in your profile, it's possible to overrule those settings for each individual post again. More people should turn 'm off ... that would be a great idea ...

Making a decent film (or transparent, or what's it called in english) has always been the greatest problem in making my own PCB's - I actually liked the rest of the process with the light and the chemicals.

For films I used to go to a printer having a technical camera (not a print shop, but a real offset printer), for just a bit of money I got perfect films from laserjet printed paper output.

I used to make my own PCBs. The old standard method with photoemulsion and all that. You can make those perfect films yourself too. What you need is "lithographic" film, and you can get that in most pro photo gear shops that sell darkroom stuff. Jan is right about most reprographic studios can do this too._________________A Charity Pantomime in aid of Paranoid Schizophrenics descended into chaos yesterday when someone shouted, "He's behind you!"

You can disable Smilies in your profile, it's possible to overrule those settings for each individual post again. More people should turn 'm off ... that would be a great idea ...

BBCode and HTML don't do much harm though.

Disabling BBCODES only means that in your posts, the bbcodes will not be expanded, not in other peoples' post that you are looking at. Turning it off makes the quote and image inclusion features also not work, so it's more or less pointless to turn it off. The only reason I can see for turning BBCODES off is if you want to use text emoticons.

Personally, I think HTML and BBCODE provide a method to make your posts more expressive. At times, creative use of emoticons (the term originally applied to text-only figures) has been raised to an art form here at electro-music.com._________________--Howard
my music and other stuff

Making a decent film (or transparent, or what's it called in english) has always been the greatest problem in making my own PCB's - I actually liked the rest of the process with the light and the chemicals.

For films I used to go to a printer having a technical camera (not a print shop, but a real offset printer), for just a bit of money I got perfect films from laserjet printed paper output.

I used to make my own PCBs. The old standard method with photoemulsion and all that. You can make those perfect films yourself too. What you need is "lithographic" film, and you can get that in most pro photo gear shops that sell darkroom stuff. Jan is right about most reprographic studios can do this too.

The latter is definately the cheaper option- and that's quite expensive already. What one needs are friends in the business, and I moved away from them years ago. Unless of course you have a few grand handy for a 10x8 Sinar technical camera complete with 210mm lens or a reprographic overhead camera -or whatever those things are called?!

I've emailed some more copies to the printer. The original one and the 300dpi version. I will have another go later this week- Jan, I'm sure it isn't that hairy- we can work it out :)

Just need to get the knack back of dry mounting using an iron and working out that I shouldn't mess with images in photoshop too much (but mummy, it's sooo fun!! :)))- I'm still 'old school' you see!

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